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Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Wishing you all a safe and happy Thanksgiving! Tomorrow, Mike and I head off for a tri-state tour of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware as we attempt to visit all of Mike's family, and hopefully my two brothers, and our friend Phil in just four short days. It should be at least 8 hours of quality time in the car with my darling husband tomorrow. Luckily he likes to drive and I usually fall asleep in the car!

My beautiful Turkey Quilt was also featured on Val's blog this week! Thanks Val!

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Today I made five obligation blocks. Three are for my friend Karen (they will go in the mail on Monday!) and two others are for a surprise (sorry, can't say more than that). I think that I have finally caught up on all my quilting obligations and can breathe easy for a little while.

I do have some other quilted gifts that I'd like to make for the holidays, but I'm not going to push myself (there's enough of that going on in other areas of my life), so if they get done, it will be a bonus. Marion came over and spent the day sewing with me, and Joannie was able to join us for a few hours.

I finished two fleece blankets. I also finished one earlier in the week. Not the most exciting projects in the world, but I had purchased the fabric in May, and I found them all pinned and ready to go in my Studio the other day, so I'm glad they're off my plate!

These blankets are for my nephews, Sam and Josh. Classic rock is perfect for them. Josh is almost 16 and Sam is 18.

The third blanket, shown here, is staying at our house. Here are LarryPug and Elvis. LarryPug, as always, is ready for his close-up. He is a natural born ham!

I didn't need another blanket, but how could I resist a fleece that included pugs?

It was cold outside, so after LarryPug jumped off the bench, I wrapped up Elvis like a pug burrito.

Marion was making doll clothes for her 6-year old granddaughter's American Girl Doll. I was impressed that she actually made 1 inch bias binding to trim the dress armholes. Here she is hand basting it on. Only a devoted grandmother would do this for a doll's dress.

My husband enjoys being outside, so he actually volunteered to rake the leaves, while we sewed. He was able to finish the back yard. There were nine bags of leaves. We still have to do the front yard and the side yard! Luckily, tomorrow will be a little warmer!

While I spent most of last weekend sleeping, this week, I have been eating my way around the world. Wednesday night, Mike and I went out for Indian food for date night; Thursday night I went out with the Thursday Girls to the Cheesecake Factory; Friday night I had pizza with Linda at Pizzeria Uno; Saturday, Marion and I had Chinese food for lunch; and Mike and I went out for Greek food tonight. I usually don't go out to eat so much, so I will have to pace myself since next week is Thanksgiving. Mike is cooking tomorrow. Yeah! He is making a shrimp dish and a beef barley soup. Perhaps I will make brownies...

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Better late than never! If you've been a blog reader for a while, you may have seen this quilt when I finished it last year. The blocks are from a Birthday Block swap done back in 2006. The pattern is called Bento Box. If you check out the close-up, you can see these fabrics are oldies, but goodies. All the fabrics are florals mixed with different green tone on tones.

Not quite right for the season, so let's pretend I live in Australia!

And now for the LarryPug photo review...

Livin' on the edge!

Here's where I move my head just as Mom takes the picture! See, I do have a neck!

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

I bet you didn't know I could be two places at the same time. Yet, here is a post from our Brown Bagger's Sunday in November which took place at the exact same time that I was at the Houston International Quilt Festival (yes, I know that I still haven't blogged about it, be patient, I'm blogging backwards this month).

Thanks to my roving blog photographers: Joannie, Kim P., and Sally, who bombarded me with photos so that I could see that they weren't staying home and crying while I was in Houston with Carol and Sue.

Marion has been a whirling dervish, finishing projects faster than we can photograph them.

Marion can cross her second oldest UFO off her list. No longer a UFO,
the binding has been sewn to the back. Read more about it here.

Asian Birthday Blocks from 2003

Pinwheel Birthday Blocks from 2012. Marion's are done in batik, mine are in
animal prints as shown here. The quilts look completely different.
And check out Kim G.'s below!

This is Kim G.'s 2012 Birthday Block quilt, done in Kaffe Fassett prints,
with non-matching background prints, which looks completely
different than Marion's above or mine. Love the border fabric!

Kim G. also made this fabulous quilt top, which I covet, from pink Kaffe Fassett prints against a black and white polka dot print background. The pattern is Pie Crust Pile-Up by Atkinson Designs. Apologies to Terry Atkinson, but I think she should re-shoot the cover photo with Kim's quilt.

If you pay close attention, you may have seen this quilt before, but it gets a second showing.

Kim P. actually finished the quilt at the November Sunday,
but was kind enough to schlep it to the Cape Weekend
to show it to me. Thanks Kim!

Monday, November 17, 2014

Still a few more photos from our fabulous weekend on Cape Cod. If you missed it, you can read Part 1 and Part 2 to get caught up.

The final two awards go to Marion and Cordula.

Marion scared the crap out of me last month by being hospitalized twice. I was afraid that she wasn't going to make it to the Cape, but quilting beckoned and she rallied from her hospital bed to accompany me.

Marion takes the award for the Quilt That Most Closely Resembles Its Name. This pattern is called Salt Water Taffy, yum! It is all batik.

This quilt is even prettier in person.

Cordula takes the award for It Wouldn't Be a Quilt Weekend If Someone Didn't Make a Yellow Brick Road Quilt. And if Cordula hadn't finished this one, I spied Nancy D. working on one, and I had one in the car.

Love the black and white fabrics with the red accents.

And without further silliness, here are some more photos from our weekend.

Nancy D., the happiest retiree I know, shows off one of
Kate's new patterns, Gingerbread Table.

Kate

Pat

Pat was hard at work on her Party Dress quilt, which was so popular, three of the Brown Baggers were making it. You saw Kim G.'s version in Part 1. Joann E. was also working on one. One inebriated lady who was peeking in our room from the Bridgewater Reunion Class of '74, said to her companion, "I thought they were doll dresses but I now I realize they are lampshades." If it's any consolation, read my post, Hatboxes or Drums? I must confess that I've always wanted to make this quilt.

I spent most of my weekend asleep. On Saturday, I slept in until about 9:30 am, which is late for me. I usually wake up around 6:30 am to 7 am, even on the weekends. I wrote a short blog post, took the pugs for a walk, then I went back to bed at 11am and slept until 5:30pm. Saturday night, Mike and I went up to his sister's house for a rockin' dance party to celebrate her 50th birthday. My nephew's band played. I love them. Good thing, I had my six hour nap because Mike and I danced until midnight.

On Sunday morning we took the pugs for an extra long walk because it was a beautiful although cold day. After lunch we decided to do our annual fall clean-up of the yard. We estimated it would take an hour to pack up all the outdoor furniture, yard art, and pug flags and put them away in the shed for the winter. Two hours later, when we finished at 3pm, Mike headed to the grocery store, and I went upstairs to bed again, where I slept until 6:30pm. Mike made a delicious dinner of meat loaf, roasted asparagus, and sweet potatoes. He also made a pot of lentil soup. After dinner, I sat on the couch with the pugs and watched some television. We caught up with Dancing with the Stars. Romeo and I are quite annoyed that Lea Thompson was eliminated and talent-less Tommy Chong gets to stay. Although Romeo is still angry that Kym Johnson isn't dancing this season, she is Romeo's favorite. I also attempted to watch a little football with Mike. The New England Patriots were playing the Baltimore Colts. I'm not a sports fan, and I fell asleep on the couch at 9:30 pm.

Not surprisingly, no sewing was done, no fabric was fondled, and no new fabric acquisitions were made, not even on the Internet. Just for the record, I did finish the fourth panel of my blue and purple Scrap Wave on Thursday night, three panels to go.

This morning, I awoke, refreshed and raring to go. I guess an extra ten hours of sleep can certainly help!

Saturday, November 15, 2014

We had our first snow of the year yesterday, although fortunately it was only a light dusting. When the puggies and I went to the park yesterday morning it looked like this.

I love the juxtaposition of fall colors and snow.

This darling little pugsicle is Elvis.

Here are his handsome brothers, LarryPug, in orange and Romeo, in blue. They are wearing pet size Squall Jackets from Lands End.

The snow added a little bit of frosting to our Halloween pumpkins...

...and to our basket of festive gourds...

...and to our Japanese maple tree.

Another stunning combination of fall colors against the snow.

I was going to pose the puggies on the purple bench with the leaves, but it was quite wet with melted snow. I love the purple and the orange together. The colors remind me of this quilt that I made with Charlotte Angotti.

It was 37 degrees in Texas yesterday, and Lola the pug stayed warm underneath her favorite quilt. Can you see her little face peeking out? Lola belongs to our friend Ann in Houston. LarryPug would love to go to Houston and ask Lola to be his girlfriend. The two gorgeous quilts in the photo are made by Ann's talented Mom, Joan.

About Me

I've been married to Mike, my soul-mate and better half for five years now, but we still feel like newlyweds. I'm "PugMom" to Romeo, Elvis, and LarryPug, the world's cutest pugs. I love fabric! I have the world's largest quilting UFO list and I keep adding new projects!